THE
     SECOND MRS. TILLOTSON.
BY THE AUTHOR OF "NEVER FORGOTTEN."
                    BOOK I.
  CHAPTER XII. ST. CECILIA AT THE ORGAN.

THE day wore on. The sun had travelled
across the field, and the calm of evening began
to set in quickly. The cricketers were growing
fatigued, but the untiring ladies showed no
sign of flagging interest. For them there was
no monotony in the spectacle—at least, the
succession of gentlemen who came up and amused
the Miss Tilneys, prevented their taking much
heed of the passage of time. Of Mr. Tillotson,
absent, dreamy, and silent, they had long since
ceased to make any account. About four, he
had wandered away unnoticed towards the old
cathedral, which, with the enclosed green, and
the little Close, and the old-fashioned houses,
had begun to have a sort of attraction for him.
There had been the cold funeral of a Service
there that day as usual; but it had been a
very dismal ritual. And Fugle, the seraphic
tenor, had to expend notes, that properly
belonged to the cherubim above, on two old
ladies and a mildewed ancient, dotted among the
lugubrious stalls, and on a tourist who, book in
hand, and studying the monuments, looked in
curiously at some angelic cry of Fugle's, but
cautiously took care not to be imprisoned within
the great gates of the choir. When Mr. Tillotson
walked among the grass, he heard the
billows of the organ still rolling and swelling
within. He went in. Bliss was practising
above. There was no one else there. His
footsteps echoed as through some vast stone
grotto. He was quite alone, and walked softly
into an oaken stall to listen to Bliss, Musical
Doctor, Oxon.

It was a soft solemn stalking theme of Bach's,
grand, old fashioned, and piquant, like music in
bag-wig and ruffles and square cut coat—
music that ambles on in a solemn canter round
and round in a ring, with quaint curvets and
backings for any length of time, with a very
charming monotony, that finally wakes up into
a grand ronde, and ends triumphantly, and
like the last burst of a procession. Mr.
Tillotson in his stall, with two comic lions with
twisted tails and a paw leaning on a shield
on each side of his head, thought of Doctor
Bliss and his powers, and was wondering
whether the dull bricklayer-work of lessons,
teaching, and the like, dulled this fine sense of
music, and whether this grand power fell into
a fatal routine also, when he heard the rattle of
closing stops and the locking of the organ doors.
Doctor Bliss was going home. He stood out
in the middle looking up at the great gallery,
and, as he did so, the organist glided across.
But it was not Doctor Bliss. Heavy shadows
were floating up among the groined arches, but
with a quick instinct he knew the outline of
that figure, and walked up to her quickly and
stopped her. By the same instinct she knew
him.

"I have been listening," he said, "in that
old dark stall. I thought it was Doctor Bliss,
and have been delighted."

"He lets me play in the evening sometimes.
It is the greatest treat I can have. It is quite
a world for me, that noble old organ, with life,
fancies, intellect, everything. In its company
I forget everything."

"Just as I," he said, "when listening,
have forgotten everything too. I have never
been what is called musical, but I can follow
and understand what I have just heard."

"But there are very few who are musical,"
she said, in her serious way, and smoothing
down her yellow hair, which rivalled an
illumined patch of amber glass just above. "They
are taught instruments and notes, but that is
scarcely music." Then she said, abruptly:
"You have spoken more than once of troubles,
and some secret bitterness which is to be
irrecoverable. May I speak to you freely? May
an inexperienced girl out of a country town
give a little advice?"

"And I shall promise to try and follow it,
too," he answered eagerly. "Indeed I shall!
Country girl! why near your wisdom ours is
all foolishness. Do speak, Miss Millwood."

"You have been so good to me," she went
on (and the two figures standing there under
the great gallery looked picturèsque even to
the verger, who had come to look up, but went
away softly, recognising her), "even from the
first night when you made me a promise which
I had no right to ask of you—that I will speak
to you without restraint. If you had some
dreadful trouble—some terrible blight, why
should you sit down under it, or take it with